I was talking with a friend the other day who’s been coding for decades and he asked me this exact question What does it mean to know your code when AI writes most of it now
It’s a fair question Honestly I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I’ve shifted more and more to vibe coding approaches
Remember back when knowing your code meant you could recite every function from memory You could trace execution paths in your sleep and debug by intuition alone Those days are fading fast and honestly that’s probably a good thing
The real shift here is what we mean by knowing something
Think about driving a car Do you need to understand combustion engine thermodynamics to be a good driver Of course not You need to understand how to operate the vehicle safely how to navigate and how to respond to road conditions
Vibe coding is similar You’re moving from being the mechanic to being the driver
But here’s where it gets interesting In vibe coding knowing your code shifts from memorizing syntax to understanding intention and capability As the Ten Principles of Vibe Coding point out Code is Capability Intentions and Interfaces are Long-term Assets What matters most are those clear prompts and stable interface contracts not the disposable code that gets generated to fulfill them
I used to pride myself on knowing every line of code in my projects Now I pride myself on crafting intentions so clear that multiple AI systems can generate working code from them That’s a completely different skill set
Here’s what knowing your code means in vibe coding
You know the boundaries and constraints You’ve defined what the system should and shouldn’t do
You understand the interfaces and how different components communicate
You can read and verify the generated code even if you didn’t write every character yourself
You maintain the intention specifications that guide the AI’s code generation
You establish the verification and observation mechanisms that ensure everything works correctly
It’s less about memorization and more about architecture and governance
The beauty of this approach is that it scales in ways manual coding never could When you’re working with AI systems they can generate and regenerate code based on your evolving intentions The code itself becomes somewhat disposable while your understanding of the system’s purpose and behavior remains paramount
But let me be clear This doesn’t mean you can just blindly trust the AI
You still need to understand what the code does You just don’t need to remember every detail You’re like a conductor who knows the score intimately without needing to play every instrument
The verification and observation principles become crucial here You build systems that are testable observable and accountable That’s how you truly know your code in the vibe coding era
So when people ask if vibe coding means you don’t know your code anymore I say exactly the opposite You know your code at a much deeper level You understand its purpose its boundaries and its behavior rather than just its implementation details
And honestly that feels like progress to me